Which Revolution?
by David R. Stokes
In my opinion, the best part of John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address on January 20, 1961, had nothing to do with asking anyone anything. The moment to remember was when he said:
“The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe - the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God. We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution.”
It is interesting, even sadly ironic that what is going on in our nation right now does resemble an old revolutionary spirit, but not necessarily that of Lexington, Concord, or Philadelphia. In fact, a case can be made – if one looks closely – that the spirit of 2009 is more like the spirit of 1789 than 1776.
The American and French Revolutions are linked in our minds because of chronology; but they were vastly different affairs. One led to a new birth of freedom; the other to terror and tyranny. That one also became the model for horrors to come.
As our nation morphs its way along, en route to becoming what some liberal diehards very much want it to be, a significant number of people would seemingly prefer “Liberty – Equality – Fraternity” over “Life – Liberty – and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
And it is in the parsing of those vitally important words that we find the keys to understanding where we came from, where we are, and where we are going.
One revolution was about individual rights and dreams. The other was about “the people” as a group and the highest virtue being “the greater good.” Can you guess which one is which?
When Thomas Jefferson wrote about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence, he was borrowing from 17th century English philosopher, John Locke, whose triad was “life, liberty, and the pursuit of property.” Jefferson’s use of this language was clearly designed to describe the rights of individual people to live free, be free, and freely pursue their dreams in a free marketplace. Those thoughts were very much in presence in that Philadelphia birthing room.
The French Revolution, on the other hand – though similar to what happened here in the sense of changing things and breaking free from an old order – had little to do with individual rights. It was all about collectivism. And in many ways, the French Revolution is the ancestor of all totalitarian systems to follow.
Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot Lenin, and all other political gangsters were heirs of Robespierre and later, Napoleon. Those tyrannical manifestations were not misguided aberrations – distortions of something that started out good (like Lenin was cool, too bad Stalin messed it all up) – the seeds of the horror were present at the beginning.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 18th century Enlightenment philosopher, had written about volonté générale or “general will” and the Jacobins, followed by others, ran with it insisting that voice of “the people” could best, actually only, be expressed by so-called “enlightened” leaders.
Our revolution indeed drew a measure of strength from the Enlightenment, but it was of the earlier Locke variety. And America’s use of Enlightenment concepts was tempered by something else; something that set it apart from what happened in France - a spiritual foundation.
Vive la revolution - Vive la difference.
The French not only declared war on the monarchy, they also attacked Christianity, replacing it with a religion of the state, introducing the worship of secularism. Sound familiar?
In America, it was very different. Now, I am not one of those who spends a lot of time trying to prove the Christian bona fides of our founding fathers, but I do believe that the influence of The Great Awakening, which ended about 20 years before the shot heard around the world was fired, was still very much a part of our national fabric at the time.
And another such movement, usually referred to as The Second Great Awakening began while the French were unsuccessfully trying to figure out how to be free. To ignore those religious and cultural movements in America is to miss an important piece of the puzzle.
You see, the very concepts of liberty, equality, and fraternity sound nice and make for great propaganda. But in the end, without virtue born of something deeper and greater, it all ends up looking the same. This is why all totalitarian regimes like to call their realms The Peoples’ this or that – like The Peoples Republic of China, or Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or The Peoples Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Fast-forward 200 plus years and here we are remembering our revolutionary beginning. As we do so, let us beware of those who share our vocabulary, but use a different dictionary.
Are we still about the individual, personal, hard-fought-for rights: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, or does the cry: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity seem to increasingly be the spirit of this age?
The reason it has all worked and endured so well in this land is because we are a nation “under God.” There I said it. There is no real liberty without that. All attempts at actual freedom end up moving toward tyranny without some sense of higher purpose and power.
I believe firmly in the separation of church and state. But minus positive religious influence, a nation cannot long remain free.
Thomas Paine’s story should be a cautionary tale. He, of course, wrote Common Sense in early 1776, and it was by all accounts vital to shaping public opinion in support of our patriotic ancestors. He was a revolutionary. In fact, there is a new book out by Glenn Beck, bearing the title Common Sense, using Mr. Paine’s ideas as a springboard for his own thoughts about what is wrong with America and how to fix it. I have read Beck’s book and like it. But I certainly hope he doesn’t write a sequel, or at least delve further into Thomas Paine’s bag of literary tricks to make future points about saving America.
Mr. Paine helped us early on, but as he moved on and shared more of his thinking via his acerbic pen, he expressed ideas that, while probably resonating with some today, would in no way mesh with the spirit of 1776.
While Common Sense supported the ideas of freedom, small government, and even low taxes – all very much part of that old revolutionary spirit – by the time the French were acting out his writings became increasingly more radical. When parts one and two of his work, The Rights of Man, appeared in 1791 and 1792, he became a pariah in England and fled to France like where he was treated like a hero, being made an honorary citizen of the republic. But by this time, his writings advocated a progressive income tax, public works for the unemployed, and guaranteed minimum incomes.
And don’t even get me started on his next bestseller, The Age Of Reason; a rant against revealed religion. Paine died virtually alone and penniless in 1809. Only six people attended his funeral.
This of course, brings us back full circle to the thesis of this article – that concepts of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, expressed individually (the intent of our founders), can only keep from drifting toward collectivism when there is a spiritual impulse – or at least a spiritual pulse.
C. S. Lewis said it very well in The Screwtape Letters more than 65 years ago:
“Hidden in the heart of this striving for Liberty there was also a deep hatred of personal freedom. That invaluable man Rousseau first revealed it. In his perfect democracy, only the state religion is permitted, slavery is restored, and the individual is told that he has really willed (though he didn't know it) whatever the Government tells him to do. From that starting point, via Hegel (another indispensable propagandist on our side), we easily contrived both the Nazi and the Communist state. Even in England we were pretty successful. I heard the other day that in that country a man could not, without a permit, cut down his own tree with his own axe, make it into planks with his own saw, and use the planks to build a tool shed in his own garden.”
Sunday, July 5, 2009
democracy
Freedom never takes a holiday
by Paul Jacob
Some 233 years ago we made a clean break from the corrupt Old World of Europe. Fifty-six men risked it all to proclaim in the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
That sums it up — the grand total of good government. This was the first government established by “the consent of the governed.”
The rest is history. Freedom is good at pursuing both happiness and prosperity. Empowered citizens pretty clearly create a whole lot better society than do dictators.
But the most striking lesson of history is sadly the opposite of America’s July 4, 1776, birth. So much of the world has long lived under political oppression — in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, South America and Europe.
It’s been tough to watch and read about the recent protests in Iran, knowing that people are bravely choosing to risk beatings and death to stand up in the streets to speak out for freedom. I’m frustrated that there isn’t something I can do.
And then it occurs to me: the best thing I can do, as an American, is to fight to keep our country all that it should be.
That’s no easy fight. As you well know.
Our governments from Washington, DC, to Hometown, USA, are out of control.
The symptoms are almost too numerous and obvious to list. Rampant spending and debt.
Regular attacks on our property rights. Corruption. Arrogance. Nanny-statism. Those relentless assaults on every popular reform — from term limits to voter initiative, referendum and recall. Bald-faced violations of fundamental constitutional rights.
The philosophy running government for some time now directly opposes the creed of 1776.
Today’s dominant belief is in unlimited government, the idea that everything is permissible, anything is possible, and nothing is sacred.
Disaster looms on the horizon; the storm clouds of several coming catastrophes are now visible and dark.
Politicians cannot stop the rain. Not even the wizardry of Obama can do that.
But I have faith in you to help us weather the storm. Thanks to your common sense — and mine Our problems are indeed solvable — tough, yes, but not impossible. What seems nearly impossible at times is our politics. Getting politicians and special interests to stop feeding on us long enough to listen to us.
The American people are not the problem; we are the solution.
While politicians and power brokers contemplate the next trillion dollar Frankenstein fix of our economy — or health care, or some even more difficult project of foreign policy — citizens need to act to get back in the game. To have a seat at the table, as the insiders would put it. A seat at our table.
Electing a good candidate to office or defeating a bad guy from time to time obviously isn’t enough. And good guys left to their own devices often don’t stay so good.
Citizens must remain engaged. We have to hold our representatives’ feet to the fire. To do so, we need fundamental change that puts citizens in charge.
The most powerful and dynamic check on power is the voter initiative, referendum and recall process. It is under constant assault from politicians and special interests. We must protect these essential citizen powers where they exist and spread them to voters everywhere.
That’s the best celebration of July 4th, to restore a government that actually acts within our consent.
Long after penning the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson would argue that he knew no safer “depository” for power than “the People.” Safer than kings or nobles — or even presidents and congressmen.
We, the People, are still the safest place to park political power. Oh, sure, I may be sporting a mustard stain on my shirt from a mishap with a hot dog, and you may even be wearing dark socks with Bermuda shorts, but freedom can and is still counting on us.
On July 4, 1776, our country’s founders pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. This July 4 — or July 5, as it happens, today — what can I pledge? What will you pledge?
by Paul Jacob
Some 233 years ago we made a clean break from the corrupt Old World of Europe. Fifty-six men risked it all to proclaim in the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
That sums it up — the grand total of good government. This was the first government established by “the consent of the governed.”
The rest is history. Freedom is good at pursuing both happiness and prosperity. Empowered citizens pretty clearly create a whole lot better society than do dictators.
But the most striking lesson of history is sadly the opposite of America’s July 4, 1776, birth. So much of the world has long lived under political oppression — in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, South America and Europe.
It’s been tough to watch and read about the recent protests in Iran, knowing that people are bravely choosing to risk beatings and death to stand up in the streets to speak out for freedom. I’m frustrated that there isn’t something I can do.
And then it occurs to me: the best thing I can do, as an American, is to fight to keep our country all that it should be.
That’s no easy fight. As you well know.
Our governments from Washington, DC, to Hometown, USA, are out of control.
The symptoms are almost too numerous and obvious to list. Rampant spending and debt.
Regular attacks on our property rights. Corruption. Arrogance. Nanny-statism. Those relentless assaults on every popular reform — from term limits to voter initiative, referendum and recall. Bald-faced violations of fundamental constitutional rights.
The philosophy running government for some time now directly opposes the creed of 1776.
Today’s dominant belief is in unlimited government, the idea that everything is permissible, anything is possible, and nothing is sacred.
Disaster looms on the horizon; the storm clouds of several coming catastrophes are now visible and dark.
Politicians cannot stop the rain. Not even the wizardry of Obama can do that.
But I have faith in you to help us weather the storm. Thanks to your common sense — and mine Our problems are indeed solvable — tough, yes, but not impossible. What seems nearly impossible at times is our politics. Getting politicians and special interests to stop feeding on us long enough to listen to us.
The American people are not the problem; we are the solution.
While politicians and power brokers contemplate the next trillion dollar Frankenstein fix of our economy — or health care, or some even more difficult project of foreign policy — citizens need to act to get back in the game. To have a seat at the table, as the insiders would put it. A seat at our table.
Electing a good candidate to office or defeating a bad guy from time to time obviously isn’t enough. And good guys left to their own devices often don’t stay so good.
Citizens must remain engaged. We have to hold our representatives’ feet to the fire. To do so, we need fundamental change that puts citizens in charge.
The most powerful and dynamic check on power is the voter initiative, referendum and recall process. It is under constant assault from politicians and special interests. We must protect these essential citizen powers where they exist and spread them to voters everywhere.
That’s the best celebration of July 4th, to restore a government that actually acts within our consent.
Long after penning the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson would argue that he knew no safer “depository” for power than “the People.” Safer than kings or nobles — or even presidents and congressmen.
We, the People, are still the safest place to park political power. Oh, sure, I may be sporting a mustard stain on my shirt from a mishap with a hot dog, and you may even be wearing dark socks with Bermuda shorts, but freedom can and is still counting on us.
On July 4, 1776, our country’s founders pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. This July 4 — or July 5, as it happens, today — what can I pledge? What will you pledge?
California politics
Can California Be Sold On Ebay's Former Leader?
by George Will
SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- California's campaigns introduce candidates not only to the state's voters but to its immensity.
In Bakersfield, Meg Whitman, 52, the former CEO of eBay who is campaigning for the 2010 Republican gubernatorial nomination, learned about carrots.
In 1968, the Grimm brothers were selling vegetables at a roadside stand in Anaheim. They moved to Bakersfield and today Grimmway Farms and one rival provide 80 percent of the nation's carrots, partly because the brothers figured out how to make the vegetables pleasingly uniform in shape.
Who knew? Whitman didn't, and the story, which she tells enthusiastically and at length, delights her because it confirms her conviction that California "was built by intellectual capital," and not just the Hollywood and Silicon Valley sort.
California's cascading crises prefigure America's future unless Washington reverses the growth of government subservient to organized labor. The state cannot pay its bills, poorly educates its young, and its taxation punishes whatever success that its suffocating regulatory regime does not prevent.
Whitman, a Roman candle of facts and ideas, insists, "We do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem of epic proportions." Twenty-five percent of California's revenues come from income taxes paid by the 144,000 richest taxpayers, so "if one of them leaves, it's a really bad thing." Lots have left. Some never really arrive. Pierre Omidyar, after founding eBay in San Jose, resided in Nevada, which has no income tax.
Whitman says 50 percent of California's spending on education, grades K through 12, goes into overhead, not classrooms, compared to 20 percent in, for example, Connecticut. The public education lobby likes it that way, but because California elementary school students rank 46th among the states in math, 48th in reading, 49th in science, it is, Whitman says tersely, hard for defenders of the status quo to "hide behind the results."
She endorses a convention to revise California's Constitution, which was written in 1879 and has been amended 518 times. She would reduce the number of state Assembly districts (there are 80) because the Legislature is cumbersome, and would modify the initiative and referendum process.
Voters have discombobulated budgeting by mandating spending without providing revenues, other than promiscuous borrowing. Whitman favors making it harder -- requiring more signatures -- to get measures on ballots, limiting the number on ballots in particular elections, and requiring the ballot language to specify the costs of measures being voted on.
She emphatically opposes a change that many proponents of a new Constitution favor -- eliminating the requirement of a two-thirds vote of both houses of the Legislature to pass a budget or raise taxes. Without those provisions, "taxes would be so high we might not have a state left."
Today's most pressing problem -- government in the grip of public employees unions -- is, she thinks, ripe for improvement: 85 percent of the state's unionized employees are working without contracts.
To change Sacramento, which Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego television stations barely cover, she must find new ways to communicate with a disconnected public. Because California is second among the states only to Wisconsin in Internet connectivity, she hopes to directly arouse the state for challenges such as modernizing the water storage and delivery system that was designed for a California with half today's population.
"There is," she says, "plenty of water in California -- we can't get it from where it is to where it is needed." The result, partly because of aggressive environmentalism, is "a slow-motion Katrina" in some Central Valley towns where unemployment is above 40 percent.
Whitman, like her rivals for the nomination (state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, another Silicon Valley success, and former Rep. Tom Campbell), is pro-choice. That normally is a problem with a significant portion of the Republican nominating electorate, but the collapse of California's once-characteristic confidence has concentrated minds on other things.
Because legislators feel validated by volume, the Legislature is, she says, a "bill machine." She vows to wield the veto power as vigorously as did Republican Govs. Pete Wilson and George Deukmejian, who cast 1,890 and 2,298, vetoes respectively.
The current calamitous governor wanted, as movie stars do, to be loved, but Whitman says tersely: "Getting elected is a popularity contest. Governing is the opposite."
Although California is a blue state, it has had Republican governors for 30 of the last 43 years. The Republican revival nationally might begin here next year.
by George Will
SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- California's campaigns introduce candidates not only to the state's voters but to its immensity.
In Bakersfield, Meg Whitman, 52, the former CEO of eBay who is campaigning for the 2010 Republican gubernatorial nomination, learned about carrots.
In 1968, the Grimm brothers were selling vegetables at a roadside stand in Anaheim. They moved to Bakersfield and today Grimmway Farms and one rival provide 80 percent of the nation's carrots, partly because the brothers figured out how to make the vegetables pleasingly uniform in shape.
Who knew? Whitman didn't, and the story, which she tells enthusiastically and at length, delights her because it confirms her conviction that California "was built by intellectual capital," and not just the Hollywood and Silicon Valley sort.
California's cascading crises prefigure America's future unless Washington reverses the growth of government subservient to organized labor. The state cannot pay its bills, poorly educates its young, and its taxation punishes whatever success that its suffocating regulatory regime does not prevent.
Whitman, a Roman candle of facts and ideas, insists, "We do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem of epic proportions." Twenty-five percent of California's revenues come from income taxes paid by the 144,000 richest taxpayers, so "if one of them leaves, it's a really bad thing." Lots have left. Some never really arrive. Pierre Omidyar, after founding eBay in San Jose, resided in Nevada, which has no income tax.
Whitman says 50 percent of California's spending on education, grades K through 12, goes into overhead, not classrooms, compared to 20 percent in, for example, Connecticut. The public education lobby likes it that way, but because California elementary school students rank 46th among the states in math, 48th in reading, 49th in science, it is, Whitman says tersely, hard for defenders of the status quo to "hide behind the results."
She endorses a convention to revise California's Constitution, which was written in 1879 and has been amended 518 times. She would reduce the number of state Assembly districts (there are 80) because the Legislature is cumbersome, and would modify the initiative and referendum process.
Voters have discombobulated budgeting by mandating spending without providing revenues, other than promiscuous borrowing. Whitman favors making it harder -- requiring more signatures -- to get measures on ballots, limiting the number on ballots in particular elections, and requiring the ballot language to specify the costs of measures being voted on.
She emphatically opposes a change that many proponents of a new Constitution favor -- eliminating the requirement of a two-thirds vote of both houses of the Legislature to pass a budget or raise taxes. Without those provisions, "taxes would be so high we might not have a state left."
Today's most pressing problem -- government in the grip of public employees unions -- is, she thinks, ripe for improvement: 85 percent of the state's unionized employees are working without contracts.
To change Sacramento, which Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego television stations barely cover, she must find new ways to communicate with a disconnected public. Because California is second among the states only to Wisconsin in Internet connectivity, she hopes to directly arouse the state for challenges such as modernizing the water storage and delivery system that was designed for a California with half today's population.
"There is," she says, "plenty of water in California -- we can't get it from where it is to where it is needed." The result, partly because of aggressive environmentalism, is "a slow-motion Katrina" in some Central Valley towns where unemployment is above 40 percent.
Whitman, like her rivals for the nomination (state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, another Silicon Valley success, and former Rep. Tom Campbell), is pro-choice. That normally is a problem with a significant portion of the Republican nominating electorate, but the collapse of California's once-characteristic confidence has concentrated minds on other things.
Because legislators feel validated by volume, the Legislature is, she says, a "bill machine." She vows to wield the veto power as vigorously as did Republican Govs. Pete Wilson and George Deukmejian, who cast 1,890 and 2,298, vetoes respectively.
The current calamitous governor wanted, as movie stars do, to be loved, but Whitman says tersely: "Getting elected is a popularity contest. Governing is the opposite."
Although California is a blue state, it has had Republican governors for 30 of the last 43 years. The Republican revival nationally might begin here next year.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Sotomayor
So Much for Wise Latinas
by Ann Coulter
With the Supreme Court's decision in Ricci v. DeStefano this week, we can now report that Sonia Sotomayor is even crazier than Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
To recap the famous Ricci case, in 2003, the city of New Haven threw out the results of a firefighters' test -- which had been expressly designed to be race-neutral -- because only whites and Hispanics scored high enough to receive immediate promotions, whereas blacks who took the test did well enough only to be eligible for promotions down the line.
Inasmuch as the high-scoring white and Hispanic firemen were denied promotions solely because of their race, they sued the city for race discrimination.
Obama's Justice-designate Sotomayor threw out their lawsuit in a sneaky, unsigned opinion -- the judicial equivalent of "talk to the hand." She upheld the city's race discrimination against white and Hispanic firemen on the grounds that the test had a "disparate impact" on blacks, meaning that it failed to promote some magical percentage of blacks.
This strict quota regime was dressed up by the city -- and by Sotomayor's opinion -- as a reasonable reaction to the threat of lawsuits by blacks who were not promoted.
That's a complicated way of saying: Racial quotas are peachy.
According to Sotomayor, any test that gets the numbers wrong -- whatever "wrong" means in any given context of professions, populations, applicants, workers, etc. -- is grounds for a lawsuit, which in turn, is grounds for an employer to engage in race discrimination against disfavored racial groups, such as white men.
Consequently, the only legal avenue available to employers under Sotomayor's ruling is always to impose strict racial quotas in making hiring and promotion decisions.
Say, if the threat of a lawsuit permits the government to ignore the Constitution, can pro-lifers get New Haven to shut down all abortion clinics by threatening to sue them? There's no question but that abortion clinics have a "disparate impact" on black babies.
This week, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 for the white and Hispanic firefighters, overturning Sotomayor's endorsement of racial quotas.
But all nine justices rejected Sotomayor's holding that different test results alone give the government a green light to engage in race discrimination. Even Justice Ginsburg's opinion for the dissent clearly stated that "an employer could not cast aside a selection method based on a statistical disparity alone."
Indeed, the dissenters argued that the case should be returned to the lower courts to look for some hidden racial bias in the test. For Sotomayor, the results alone proved racial bias.
The one advantage Sotomayor's talk-to-the-hand opinion has over Justice Ginsburg's prolix dissent is that brevity prevented Sotomayor from having to explain why quotas aren't quotas.
That was left to Ginsburg.
Liberals desperately want race quotas -- as long as quotas never come to their offices.
But they can't say that, so instead they talk in circles for 10 hours straight, until everyone else is exhausted, and then, when no one is paying attention, they announce: So we're all agreed -- we will have racial quotas.
Based on her lifetime of experience working as a firefighter, Ginsburg said: "Relying heavily on written tests to select fire officers is a questionable practice, to say the least." Liberals prefer a more objective test, such as race.
Isn't excelling on written tests how Ruth Bader Ginsburg got where she is? It's curious how people whose entire careers are based on doing well on tests find them so irrelevant to other people's jobs.
In the middle of a fire, it can either be a great idea or the worst possible idea to open a door. An excellent method for finding out if your next fire chief knows the correct answer is a written test.
Unleashing the canard of all race-obsessed liberals, Ginsburg observed that courts have found that a fire officer's job "involves complex behaviors, good interpersonal skills, the ability to make decisions under tremendous pressure, and a host of other abilities -- none of which is easily measured by a written, multiple choice test."
So does a lawyer's job. And yet attorneys with absolutely no "interpersonal skills" get cushy jobs and extravagant salaries on the basis of their commendable performance on all manner of written tests, from multiple choice LSATs and bar exams to written law school exams.
I note that Ginsburg has not shown any particular interest in rectifying the "disparate impact" of legal exams: She never hired a single black law clerk out of the dozens she employed in more than a decade as an appeals court judge. (Her hiring practices on the Supreme Court are a state secret, but I can state with supreme certainty that her clerks do not reflect the racial mix of Washington, D.C.)
But liberals think other people's jobs are a joke, so the testing must also be a joke. That is --
other than their preferred test: "Is the applicant black, female or otherwise handicapped?"
There is no test that can prove all things about an employee and so there is no test that can't be derided by the race-mongers. Which is exactly the point. Get rid of all tests -- except for lawyers who graduated at the top of their law school classes at Columbia, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Then liberals are free to impose racial quotas on other people's jobs without limit.
As crazy as this is, even Ginsburg and the other dissenters made a big point of pretending there was some flaw in this particular test. None adopted Sotomayor's position that unequal test results alone prove discrimination.
This suggests that a wise Jewess, due to the richness of her life experiences, might come to a better judgment than a Latina judge would.
by Ann Coulter
With the Supreme Court's decision in Ricci v. DeStefano this week, we can now report that Sonia Sotomayor is even crazier than Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
To recap the famous Ricci case, in 2003, the city of New Haven threw out the results of a firefighters' test -- which had been expressly designed to be race-neutral -- because only whites and Hispanics scored high enough to receive immediate promotions, whereas blacks who took the test did well enough only to be eligible for promotions down the line.
Inasmuch as the high-scoring white and Hispanic firemen were denied promotions solely because of their race, they sued the city for race discrimination.
Obama's Justice-designate Sotomayor threw out their lawsuit in a sneaky, unsigned opinion -- the judicial equivalent of "talk to the hand." She upheld the city's race discrimination against white and Hispanic firemen on the grounds that the test had a "disparate impact" on blacks, meaning that it failed to promote some magical percentage of blacks.
This strict quota regime was dressed up by the city -- and by Sotomayor's opinion -- as a reasonable reaction to the threat of lawsuits by blacks who were not promoted.
That's a complicated way of saying: Racial quotas are peachy.
According to Sotomayor, any test that gets the numbers wrong -- whatever "wrong" means in any given context of professions, populations, applicants, workers, etc. -- is grounds for a lawsuit, which in turn, is grounds for an employer to engage in race discrimination against disfavored racial groups, such as white men.
Consequently, the only legal avenue available to employers under Sotomayor's ruling is always to impose strict racial quotas in making hiring and promotion decisions.
Say, if the threat of a lawsuit permits the government to ignore the Constitution, can pro-lifers get New Haven to shut down all abortion clinics by threatening to sue them? There's no question but that abortion clinics have a "disparate impact" on black babies.
This week, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 for the white and Hispanic firefighters, overturning Sotomayor's endorsement of racial quotas.
But all nine justices rejected Sotomayor's holding that different test results alone give the government a green light to engage in race discrimination. Even Justice Ginsburg's opinion for the dissent clearly stated that "an employer could not cast aside a selection method based on a statistical disparity alone."
Indeed, the dissenters argued that the case should be returned to the lower courts to look for some hidden racial bias in the test. For Sotomayor, the results alone proved racial bias.
The one advantage Sotomayor's talk-to-the-hand opinion has over Justice Ginsburg's prolix dissent is that brevity prevented Sotomayor from having to explain why quotas aren't quotas.
That was left to Ginsburg.
Liberals desperately want race quotas -- as long as quotas never come to their offices.
But they can't say that, so instead they talk in circles for 10 hours straight, until everyone else is exhausted, and then, when no one is paying attention, they announce: So we're all agreed -- we will have racial quotas.
Based on her lifetime of experience working as a firefighter, Ginsburg said: "Relying heavily on written tests to select fire officers is a questionable practice, to say the least." Liberals prefer a more objective test, such as race.
Isn't excelling on written tests how Ruth Bader Ginsburg got where she is? It's curious how people whose entire careers are based on doing well on tests find them so irrelevant to other people's jobs.
In the middle of a fire, it can either be a great idea or the worst possible idea to open a door. An excellent method for finding out if your next fire chief knows the correct answer is a written test.
Unleashing the canard of all race-obsessed liberals, Ginsburg observed that courts have found that a fire officer's job "involves complex behaviors, good interpersonal skills, the ability to make decisions under tremendous pressure, and a host of other abilities -- none of which is easily measured by a written, multiple choice test."
So does a lawyer's job. And yet attorneys with absolutely no "interpersonal skills" get cushy jobs and extravagant salaries on the basis of their commendable performance on all manner of written tests, from multiple choice LSATs and bar exams to written law school exams.
I note that Ginsburg has not shown any particular interest in rectifying the "disparate impact" of legal exams: She never hired a single black law clerk out of the dozens she employed in more than a decade as an appeals court judge. (Her hiring practices on the Supreme Court are a state secret, but I can state with supreme certainty that her clerks do not reflect the racial mix of Washington, D.C.)
But liberals think other people's jobs are a joke, so the testing must also be a joke. That is --
other than their preferred test: "Is the applicant black, female or otherwise handicapped?"
There is no test that can prove all things about an employee and so there is no test that can't be derided by the race-mongers. Which is exactly the point. Get rid of all tests -- except for lawyers who graduated at the top of their law school classes at Columbia, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Then liberals are free to impose racial quotas on other people's jobs without limit.
As crazy as this is, even Ginsburg and the other dissenters made a big point of pretending there was some flaw in this particular test. None adopted Sotomayor's position that unequal test results alone prove discrimination.
This suggests that a wise Jewess, due to the richness of her life experiences, might come to a better judgment than a Latina judge would.
Obama and socialism
None Dare Call It Marxism
by David Limbaugh
All right already. I won't call Obama a Marxist in this column. Instead, I'll point to some signs that indicate that Barack and Karl might well be soul mates. At least, they have similar attitudes about capital, labor and profits, er, surplus value.
Liberals, even those of the Marxist variety, take umbrage when you point out their ideological kinship with Marxism.
I suppose this dates back to the days when being a communist was tantamount to being an enemy of the United States, in that there was a global communist movement intent on -- and coming darn close to -- world domination. Though global communism has been defeated, there remains a strong contingent among us, whose nerve center is the Democratic Party leadership under President Obama, committed to obliterating America's free market.
Without getting into the intricacies of Marxist theory, suffice it to say that at the core of this political and economic philosophy is a belief in the historical class struggle. The capitalist (bourgeois) exploits the industrial worker (proletarian) by underpaying him and adding on unnecessary charges to the prices of goods and services, driving up costs to the consumer, and pocketing the profits.
In "Basic Economics," Thomas Sowell puts it this way: "Profits may be the most misconceived subject in economics. Socialists have long regarded profits as simply 'overcharge,' as Fabian socialist George Bernard Shaw called it, or a 'surplus value' as Karl Marx called it." The theory is that under socialism or Marxism, these surplus charges would be eliminated and goods and services would become more affordable.
But in reality, socialism doesn't make goods and services more affordable, but less so.
As Dr. Sowell explains: "The hope for profits and the threat of losses is what forces a business owner in a capitalist economy to produce at the lowest cost and sell what the customers are most willing to pay for. ... Under socialism (there is) far less incentive to be as efficient ... much less to keep up with changing conditions and respond to them quickly."
With less incentive for efficiencies and cost control, the prices of goods might well be higher.
Profits are not arbitrary charges added on to the costs of producing goods and services; nor are they attributable to artificially high prices charged by those motivated by greed. Indeed, writes Sowell, most of the great fortunes in American history were amassed when entrepreneurs were able to reduce costs and charge lower prices and to increase their volume sales to mass markets.
You get the point. Capitalists don't view profits as evil or the product of greed. Their opponents -- call them Marxists, fascists, socialists, radical liberals or whatever -- do. Which brings us back to Barack Obama.
Both his father, Barack Obama Sr., and his mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, were communists. His church of choice was one of black liberation theology, whose Marxist roots are inarguable. He associated with far leftists on the "organizing" streets of Chicago, including Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.
Mentorship and associations are one thing, but what have Obama's words and actions revealed about his attitudes toward labor, capital, profits and government control of business and industry?
Well, he said that he would raise capital gains tax rates, even if it reduced revenues, as a matter of fairness. It's only fair to make everyone poorer if you believe profits are inherently evil.
He told Joe the Plumber he wants to spread the wealth around. He talked about confiscating Exxon Mobil's profits and giving them to consumers, saying "they are not going to give up those profits easily."
He called Chrysler creditors "speculators" and castigated them for refusing to accept his extortionist reorganization plan. He berated Wall Street for making profits, saying "now is not (the) time" for them to "rake in profits." He and his wife even railed against the pursuit of profit in their respective commencement addresses.
He abused the power of his office to steal money from GM and Chrysler shareholders and transfer it to the proletariat, I mean, the United Auto Workers. He redistributed taxpayer money from those who have paid their mortgages to those who have not.
He is desperately trying to spread the misery and impoverish businesses and individuals through his cap and tax plan, which no proponent of economic growth and prosperity would consider supporting.
And in addition to gobbling up other businesses and industries, he is trying to nationalize medicine -- to siphon off the evil surplus value charged by doctors and insurance companies -- on the flawed Marxist theory that he can reduce costs overall, when the reason health care costs have already skyrocketed is that market forces have been suppressed in the industry.
You don't have to call him a Marxist, but at least understand where his heart is.
by David Limbaugh
All right already. I won't call Obama a Marxist in this column. Instead, I'll point to some signs that indicate that Barack and Karl might well be soul mates. At least, they have similar attitudes about capital, labor and profits, er, surplus value.
Liberals, even those of the Marxist variety, take umbrage when you point out their ideological kinship with Marxism.
I suppose this dates back to the days when being a communist was tantamount to being an enemy of the United States, in that there was a global communist movement intent on -- and coming darn close to -- world domination. Though global communism has been defeated, there remains a strong contingent among us, whose nerve center is the Democratic Party leadership under President Obama, committed to obliterating America's free market.
Without getting into the intricacies of Marxist theory, suffice it to say that at the core of this political and economic philosophy is a belief in the historical class struggle. The capitalist (bourgeois) exploits the industrial worker (proletarian) by underpaying him and adding on unnecessary charges to the prices of goods and services, driving up costs to the consumer, and pocketing the profits.
In "Basic Economics," Thomas Sowell puts it this way: "Profits may be the most misconceived subject in economics. Socialists have long regarded profits as simply 'overcharge,' as Fabian socialist George Bernard Shaw called it, or a 'surplus value' as Karl Marx called it." The theory is that under socialism or Marxism, these surplus charges would be eliminated and goods and services would become more affordable.
But in reality, socialism doesn't make goods and services more affordable, but less so.
As Dr. Sowell explains: "The hope for profits and the threat of losses is what forces a business owner in a capitalist economy to produce at the lowest cost and sell what the customers are most willing to pay for. ... Under socialism (there is) far less incentive to be as efficient ... much less to keep up with changing conditions and respond to them quickly."
With less incentive for efficiencies and cost control, the prices of goods might well be higher.
Profits are not arbitrary charges added on to the costs of producing goods and services; nor are they attributable to artificially high prices charged by those motivated by greed. Indeed, writes Sowell, most of the great fortunes in American history were amassed when entrepreneurs were able to reduce costs and charge lower prices and to increase their volume sales to mass markets.
You get the point. Capitalists don't view profits as evil or the product of greed. Their opponents -- call them Marxists, fascists, socialists, radical liberals or whatever -- do. Which brings us back to Barack Obama.
Both his father, Barack Obama Sr., and his mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, were communists. His church of choice was one of black liberation theology, whose Marxist roots are inarguable. He associated with far leftists on the "organizing" streets of Chicago, including Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.
Mentorship and associations are one thing, but what have Obama's words and actions revealed about his attitudes toward labor, capital, profits and government control of business and industry?
Well, he said that he would raise capital gains tax rates, even if it reduced revenues, as a matter of fairness. It's only fair to make everyone poorer if you believe profits are inherently evil.
He told Joe the Plumber he wants to spread the wealth around. He talked about confiscating Exxon Mobil's profits and giving them to consumers, saying "they are not going to give up those profits easily."
He called Chrysler creditors "speculators" and castigated them for refusing to accept his extortionist reorganization plan. He berated Wall Street for making profits, saying "now is not (the) time" for them to "rake in profits." He and his wife even railed against the pursuit of profit in their respective commencement addresses.
He abused the power of his office to steal money from GM and Chrysler shareholders and transfer it to the proletariat, I mean, the United Auto Workers. He redistributed taxpayer money from those who have paid their mortgages to those who have not.
He is desperately trying to spread the misery and impoverish businesses and individuals through his cap and tax plan, which no proponent of economic growth and prosperity would consider supporting.
And in addition to gobbling up other businesses and industries, he is trying to nationalize medicine -- to siphon off the evil surplus value charged by doctors and insurance companies -- on the flawed Marxist theory that he can reduce costs overall, when the reason health care costs have already skyrocketed is that market forces have been suppressed in the industry.
You don't have to call him a Marxist, but at least understand where his heart is.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Another Inspector General fired
Who Railroaded the Amtrak Inspector General?
by Michelle Malkin
Watchdogs are an endangered species in the Age of Obama. The latest government ombudsman to get the muzzle: Amtrak Inspector General Fred Weiderhold. The longtime veteran employee was abruptly "retired" this month -- just as the government-subsidized rail service faces mounting complaints about its meddling in financial audits and probes.
Question the timing? Hell, yes.
On June 18, Weiderhold met with Amtrak officials to discuss the results of an independent report by the Washington, D.C., law firm Willkie, Farr and Gallagher. The 94-page report has been made publicly available through the office of whistleblower advocate Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. It concluded that the "independence and effectiveness" of the Amtrak inspector general's office "are being substantially impaired" by the agency's Law Department.
Amtrak bosses have effectively gagged their budgetary watchdogs from communicating with Congress without pre-approval; required that all Amtrak documents be "pre-screened" (and in some cases redacted) before being turned over to the inspector general's office; and taken control of the inspector general's $5 million portion of federal stimulus spending.
Moreover, the report revealed, Amtrak regularly retained outside law firms shielded from IG reach. In another case, Amtrak's Law Department appeared to meddle in an inspector general investigation of an outside financial adviser suspected of inflating fees. The consultant ran to the Law Department when the IG demanded documents, and the Law Department repudiated the IG's instructions on complying with a subpoena.
These interventions (ongoing since 2007) have "systematically violated the letter and spirit of the Inspector General Act," according to Grassley. IG staffers now fear retaliation -- and with good reason. Their boss, Weiderhold, lost his job on the very day Amtrak received the Willkie, Farr and Gallagher report. It may be hot and humid in the rest of the Beltway, but every inspector general's office is feeling an Arctic chill.
The transparent sacking comes just as Amtrak is awash in more than $1.3 billion in new federal stimulus money. It comes on the heels of the unceremonious dismissal of Gerald Walpin, the AmeriCorps inspector general who dared to probe financial shenanigans by Obama cronies. (See "Obama's AmeriCrooks and Cronies Scandal," June 17, 2009.)
And it comes on the heels of the stifling of veteran Environmental Protection Agency employee Alan Carlin, the researcher who dared to question the Obama administration's conventional wisdom on global warming. (See "EPA's Game of Global Warming Hide-and-Seek," June 26, 2009.)
Question the timing? You betcha.
So, who is behind the railroading of the Amtrak inspector general? As with the story of the AmeriCorps firing, which has First Lady Michelle Obama's fingerprints on it, the Amtrak case smells like cronyism. Investigative journalist Robert Stacy McCain, who has watchdogged the watchdog stories, noted last week that Amtrak's vice president and general counsel is Eleanor Acheson.
Acheson, an old friend of Hillary Clinton, also has close ties to Vice President Joe "Mr. Amtrak" Biden. She hired Biden's nominations counsel Jonathan Meyer to serve as her deputy general counsel. The two had also worked together in the Clinton Justice Department.
Meyer called his hiring at Amtrak by Acheson a "happy coincidence," according to Legal Times. (In another "happy coincidence," Biden's lobbyist son, Hunter, sits on Amtrak's board of directors.) Acheson oversees the very Law Department accused of interfering repeatedly with the taxpayer advocates in the inspector general's office.
Grassley has requested that Amtrak supply information on Weiderhold's unexpected retirement, as well as internal and personal materials related to his departure and the report on Amtrak managers' meddling.
On the House side, Reps. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., and Darrell Issa, R-Calif., announced a probe Monday into Amtrak's actions. They zeroed in on Amtrak's choice of Lorraine Green to replace the "retired" Weiderhold.
Who is Lorraine Green? She's a former Amtrak human resources executive and faithful Democrat donor with no experience in the inspector general business. Her expertise? Managing "diversity initiatives" for the agency. Watchdog out. Lapdog in.
Can someone open a window? The fetid odor of Hope and Change is really starting to stink up the joint.
by Michelle Malkin
Watchdogs are an endangered species in the Age of Obama. The latest government ombudsman to get the muzzle: Amtrak Inspector General Fred Weiderhold. The longtime veteran employee was abruptly "retired" this month -- just as the government-subsidized rail service faces mounting complaints about its meddling in financial audits and probes.
Question the timing? Hell, yes.
On June 18, Weiderhold met with Amtrak officials to discuss the results of an independent report by the Washington, D.C., law firm Willkie, Farr and Gallagher. The 94-page report has been made publicly available through the office of whistleblower advocate Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. It concluded that the "independence and effectiveness" of the Amtrak inspector general's office "are being substantially impaired" by the agency's Law Department.
Amtrak bosses have effectively gagged their budgetary watchdogs from communicating with Congress without pre-approval; required that all Amtrak documents be "pre-screened" (and in some cases redacted) before being turned over to the inspector general's office; and taken control of the inspector general's $5 million portion of federal stimulus spending.
Moreover, the report revealed, Amtrak regularly retained outside law firms shielded from IG reach. In another case, Amtrak's Law Department appeared to meddle in an inspector general investigation of an outside financial adviser suspected of inflating fees. The consultant ran to the Law Department when the IG demanded documents, and the Law Department repudiated the IG's instructions on complying with a subpoena.
These interventions (ongoing since 2007) have "systematically violated the letter and spirit of the Inspector General Act," according to Grassley. IG staffers now fear retaliation -- and with good reason. Their boss, Weiderhold, lost his job on the very day Amtrak received the Willkie, Farr and Gallagher report. It may be hot and humid in the rest of the Beltway, but every inspector general's office is feeling an Arctic chill.
The transparent sacking comes just as Amtrak is awash in more than $1.3 billion in new federal stimulus money. It comes on the heels of the unceremonious dismissal of Gerald Walpin, the AmeriCorps inspector general who dared to probe financial shenanigans by Obama cronies. (See "Obama's AmeriCrooks and Cronies Scandal," June 17, 2009.)
And it comes on the heels of the stifling of veteran Environmental Protection Agency employee Alan Carlin, the researcher who dared to question the Obama administration's conventional wisdom on global warming. (See "EPA's Game of Global Warming Hide-and-Seek," June 26, 2009.)
Question the timing? You betcha.
So, who is behind the railroading of the Amtrak inspector general? As with the story of the AmeriCorps firing, which has First Lady Michelle Obama's fingerprints on it, the Amtrak case smells like cronyism. Investigative journalist Robert Stacy McCain, who has watchdogged the watchdog stories, noted last week that Amtrak's vice president and general counsel is Eleanor Acheson.
Acheson, an old friend of Hillary Clinton, also has close ties to Vice President Joe "Mr. Amtrak" Biden. She hired Biden's nominations counsel Jonathan Meyer to serve as her deputy general counsel. The two had also worked together in the Clinton Justice Department.
Meyer called his hiring at Amtrak by Acheson a "happy coincidence," according to Legal Times. (In another "happy coincidence," Biden's lobbyist son, Hunter, sits on Amtrak's board of directors.) Acheson oversees the very Law Department accused of interfering repeatedly with the taxpayer advocates in the inspector general's office.
Grassley has requested that Amtrak supply information on Weiderhold's unexpected retirement, as well as internal and personal materials related to his departure and the report on Amtrak managers' meddling.
On the House side, Reps. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., and Darrell Issa, R-Calif., announced a probe Monday into Amtrak's actions. They zeroed in on Amtrak's choice of Lorraine Green to replace the "retired" Weiderhold.
Who is Lorraine Green? She's a former Amtrak human resources executive and faithful Democrat donor with no experience in the inspector general business. Her expertise? Managing "diversity initiatives" for the agency. Watchdog out. Lapdog in.
Can someone open a window? The fetid odor of Hope and Change is really starting to stink up the joint.
Sotomayor reversed again
Equality on Trial
by Thomas Sowell
For the fourth time in six cases, the Supreme Court of the United States has reversed a decision for which Judge Sonia Sotomayor voted on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. If this nominee were a white male, would this not raise questions about whether he should be elevated to a court that has found his previous decisions wrong two-thirds of the times when those decisions have been reviewed?
Is no one supposed to ask questions about qualifications, simply because this nominee is Hispanic and a woman? Have we become that mindless?
Qualifications are not simply a question of how long you have been doing something, but how well you have done it. Judge Sotomayor has certainly been on the federal bench long enough, but is being reversed four out of six times a sign of a job well done?
Would longevity be equated with qualifications anywhere else? Some sergeants have been in the army longer than some generals but nobody thinks that is a reason to make those sergeants generals.
Performance matters. And Judge Sotomayor's performance provides no reason for putting her on the Supreme Court.
Although the case of the Connecticut firefighters is the latest and best-known of Judge Sotomayor's reversals by the Supreme Court, an even more revealing case was Didden v. Village of Port Chester, where the Supreme Court openly rebuked the unanimous three-judge panel that included Judge Sotomayor for "an evident denial of the most elementary forms of procedural due process."
Longevity is not the only false argument for putting Sonia Sotomayor on the Supreme Court. Another is the argument that "elections have consequences," so that the fact that Barack Obama won last year's elections means that his choice for the Supreme Court should be confirmed. This is a political talking point rather than a serious argument.
Of course elections have consequences. But Senators were also elected, and the Constitution of the United States gives them both the right and the duty to say "yes" or "no" to any president's judicial nominees.
It is painfully appropriate that the case which finally took the Sotomayor nomination beyond the realm of personal biography is one where the key question is how far this country is going to go on the question of racial representation versus individual qualifications.
Too much that Sonia Sotomayor has said and done over the years places her squarely in the camp of those supporting a racial spoils system instead of equal treatment for all. The organizations she has belonged to, as well as the statements she has made repeatedly -- not just an isolated slip of the tongue taken "out of context"-- as well as her dismissing the white firefighters' case that the Supreme Court heard and heeded, all point in the same direction.
Within living memory, there was a time when someone who was black could not get certain jobs, regardless of how high that individual's qualifications might be. It outraged the conscience of a nation and aroused people of various races and social backgrounds to rise up against it, sometimes at the risk of their lives.
Many, if not most, thought that they were fighting for equal treatment for all. But, today, too many people seem to think it is just a question of whose ox is gored-- or for whom one has "empathy," which amounts to the same thing in practice.
Clever people say that none of this matters because Republican Senators don't have enough votes to stop this nominee from being confirmed. But that assumes that every Democrats will vote for her, regardless of what the public thinks. It also assumes that alerting the public doesn't matter, now or for the future.
The standards for judging the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor are not the standards of either the criminal law or the civil law. That is, nothing has to be proven against her "beyond a reasonable doubt" or even by "a preponderance of the evidence."
Judge Sotomayor is not in any jeopardy that would entitle her to the benefit of the doubt. It is 300 million Americans and their posterity who are entitled to the benefit of the doubt when the enormous power of determining what their rights are is put into anyone's hands as a Supreme Court justice for life.
by Thomas Sowell
For the fourth time in six cases, the Supreme Court of the United States has reversed a decision for which Judge Sonia Sotomayor voted on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. If this nominee were a white male, would this not raise questions about whether he should be elevated to a court that has found his previous decisions wrong two-thirds of the times when those decisions have been reviewed?
Is no one supposed to ask questions about qualifications, simply because this nominee is Hispanic and a woman? Have we become that mindless?
Qualifications are not simply a question of how long you have been doing something, but how well you have done it. Judge Sotomayor has certainly been on the federal bench long enough, but is being reversed four out of six times a sign of a job well done?
Would longevity be equated with qualifications anywhere else? Some sergeants have been in the army longer than some generals but nobody thinks that is a reason to make those sergeants generals.
Performance matters. And Judge Sotomayor's performance provides no reason for putting her on the Supreme Court.
Although the case of the Connecticut firefighters is the latest and best-known of Judge Sotomayor's reversals by the Supreme Court, an even more revealing case was Didden v. Village of Port Chester, where the Supreme Court openly rebuked the unanimous three-judge panel that included Judge Sotomayor for "an evident denial of the most elementary forms of procedural due process."
Longevity is not the only false argument for putting Sonia Sotomayor on the Supreme Court. Another is the argument that "elections have consequences," so that the fact that Barack Obama won last year's elections means that his choice for the Supreme Court should be confirmed. This is a political talking point rather than a serious argument.
Of course elections have consequences. But Senators were also elected, and the Constitution of the United States gives them both the right and the duty to say "yes" or "no" to any president's judicial nominees.
It is painfully appropriate that the case which finally took the Sotomayor nomination beyond the realm of personal biography is one where the key question is how far this country is going to go on the question of racial representation versus individual qualifications.
Too much that Sonia Sotomayor has said and done over the years places her squarely in the camp of those supporting a racial spoils system instead of equal treatment for all. The organizations she has belonged to, as well as the statements she has made repeatedly -- not just an isolated slip of the tongue taken "out of context"-- as well as her dismissing the white firefighters' case that the Supreme Court heard and heeded, all point in the same direction.
Within living memory, there was a time when someone who was black could not get certain jobs, regardless of how high that individual's qualifications might be. It outraged the conscience of a nation and aroused people of various races and social backgrounds to rise up against it, sometimes at the risk of their lives.
Many, if not most, thought that they were fighting for equal treatment for all. But, today, too many people seem to think it is just a question of whose ox is gored-- or for whom one has "empathy," which amounts to the same thing in practice.
Clever people say that none of this matters because Republican Senators don't have enough votes to stop this nominee from being confirmed. But that assumes that every Democrats will vote for her, regardless of what the public thinks. It also assumes that alerting the public doesn't matter, now or for the future.
The standards for judging the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor are not the standards of either the criminal law or the civil law. That is, nothing has to be proven against her "beyond a reasonable doubt" or even by "a preponderance of the evidence."
Judge Sotomayor is not in any jeopardy that would entitle her to the benefit of the doubt. It is 300 million Americans and their posterity who are entitled to the benefit of the doubt when the enormous power of determining what their rights are is put into anyone's hands as a Supreme Court justice for life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
